The annual Northeast Collegiate Spring Meet is typically referred to as the “Super bowl” for collegiate woodsmen. Over 15 schools in the Northeast gather at a designated college to compete against one another for the coveted spring meet title in one of three divisions: Men’s, Women’s and Jack and Jill. Paul Smith’s College has been known for placing well in at least one of these divisions for the past few years. This last weekend, for the first time in spring meet history, all three divisions were won by the Paul Smith’s College lumberjacks and jills.
For those of you who do not know have a background in timbersports, it is a competition between individuals and teams to test their chopping, speed climbing, boom running, splitting, log rolling, and many other skills. Each discipline mimics the events that lumberjacks used to compete in during the time of logging camps, in order to prove they are worthy of being a lumberjack.
Along with this weekend came the Northeast Collegiate Stihl Timbersports qualifier. Each school in several regions throughout the United States sent their best Jacks and Jills to compete for a spot on the professional Stihl Timbersports men and women’s team. Their disciplines include the underhand chop, standing block chop, single-buck sawing and stock saw. At the end of this competition both Paul Smith’s athletes took first place, Jesse Cutting and Emily DeYoung.
The overall weekend was a great event for students, alumni, and families to connect with one another to cheer on our teams. With a clean sweep, all of our Jacks and Jills can now rest up for next season.
Kimi Sekorski is a senior at Paul Smith’s College in Natural resource management and policy. She will be on a rappelling fire crew in Oregon upon graduation in May.